Mother's Day

I received a card in the mail from my gestational carrier this week welcoming me to Motherhood. We are now at 16.5 weeks - no one else in my life would have sent me a card pre-birth, knowing how evil-eye I can be about such things, but it was thoughtful coming from Vanessa.

I've tried to explain to Vanessa what this journey is like for me. Its complicated, and so unique - but this is the best I can do:

I've always known I wanted to have children -- I've known it since I was a child myself. Deciding to go it alone was difficult, but once I crossed that hurdle, I knew I'd made the right decision. When I passed 30, and then 35, I worried about the quality of my eggs; but, ironically, that wasn't my problem. My problem was my uterus and I'd likely had this problem all my life.

My doctors and I tried everything - hormones, procedures, surgeries, more hormones, more surgeries - and nothing worked. I went through IVF and froze my embryos while we continued to try to fix my uterus, to no avail.

The potential for my future children existed. On a tiny island in the frozen Arctic waters, far from home. I just needed to go and get them, to bring them home, let them start a life. But my boat had a huge hole in the bottom. We tried to patch it, we tried to bail water out, but nothing worked. And every time we'd place a child in the boat, they would woosh out into the sea, lost forever. It was heartbreaking.

Some of my doctors didn't want to give up -- they spoke of more hormones, more surgeries, more procedures.
But I decided to get a new boat.

My daughter is now on that boat on her way to shore. I wish I could have gone to pick her up myself, but this is the safest decision for her, and for me. She is safe and warm and I'll meet her a few months later, and we'll travel the rest of the journey together.

And so, on this Mother's Day, I am a little sad that I'm not the one who can feel her kick, experience her movement, be constantly reassured that she is safe. That she is okay. But mostly I am grateful. Grateful for Vanessa, grateful for my medical team, grateful for the sheer luck that made this possible. Grateful that I have the chance to become a Mom.